Monty Panesar, who strays from the prepared script as rarely as he does the "right areas", will have viewed Graham Onions' last-over heroics to save the third Test for England at Cape Town with the same equanimity he has brought to the rest of his interesting career.

It might have been him. Indeed, six months ago in Cardiff, it was him. But for Monty's stubborn resistance with Jimmy Anderson that sunny afternoon, England would have yet again bent to the will of the Australians. Instead, with a riveting performance that seemed to last far longer than the recorded 37 minutes and 35 deliveries, he helped England draw the first Test. "It was horrible to watch," recalled an appreciative Andrew Strauss, who went on to lead England to a tense Ashes triumph – without Panesar.

While his team-mates and friends enjoyed a reprise of England's 2005 minor miracle, Panesar returned to the mundanity of the county circuit and eked out 18 wickets for Northamptonshire. At the end of the summer he lost his central contract – and his county one. It was a crushing judgment on his form. The ball refused to turn and bite. The bounce had gone, from his deliveries and his step. But the ever-smiling Monty, a man for whom adversity is a mere inconvenience, did not lose the one quality that separates him from the herd: fortitude.

Comforted by a move to Sussex after nine years with the county that once played the odd game in his home town of Luton, he felt emboldened to stop listening to the avalanche of advice that had threatened to bury what little initiative he had brought to his bowling. Monty was going to stand up for himself, far away from the comfort zone of the England team that had abandoned him.

But not far away at all. On Thursday he was in South Africa, where he has been rebuilding his cricket with the Highveld Lions. Panesar told South Africa's Times newspaper he was looking for "all round development" with his new club. He added: "Having the responsibility as the overseas pro has been different."

It was a simple but important observation. Nobody – not Duncan Fletcher, Michael Vaughan or Strauss – has ever really trusted Panesar to think for himself. He set what Vaughan called university fields.

When I spoke to Vaughan recently, he pointed out: "I don't think it's what we do with Monty, or what anyone does, it's what Monty does with himself. You can't just rely on people telling what you to do all the time. It's great that he's gone to South Africa, putting himself under pressure."

In Dave Nosworthy, his coach at Lions, Panesar seems to have found the sort of hands-off mentor he needs to let him be more expressive. "He has grown," Nosworthy says. "He arrived here pretty low in confidence and we have allowed him to explore different avenues with his bowling, and explore himself, really, to be honest, to stop listening to 50,000 people and concentrate on what he needs to do. I think he's grown as a person, more than anything else. He's a lot more confident and he's bowled quite nicely for us."

Quite nicely is the proper euphemism. In a notoriously combative environment, Panesar has not exactly stormed through the cream of South African provincial batting, where left-arm spinners are often cannon fodder, but neither has he let his new employers down. They are third in the table.

In six matches, Panesar has returned moderate figures but, on occasion, put in some long spells: his 15 wickets in 210.4 overs have cost 39 runs each – not the sort of numbers to excite Geoff Miller and his fellow selectors, or worry Graeme Swann.

"We're very happy with what he's done and what we required out of the deal," Nosworthy said. "As per the agreement before he came, his is a four-day focus. He's helping us in the nets during our one-day game, and helping develop our young spinners. There has been a lot of good banter in the dressing room."

It is a young, star-sprinkled team and Panesar is comfortable in the company of Test players such as Neil McKenzie, Andre Nel, Thami Tsolekile and Friedel de Wet, the new Proteas fast-bowling star. While clearly content in new surroundings – he notes there are a lot of shopping malls in South Africa – he knows where his heart his.

And, realistically, he is no nearer to resurrecting his international career, given that Swann has established himself as the sort of all-round "proper cricketer" and spinner that Fletcher demanded when he drafted Panesar into the England set-up with all the enthusiasm of a man given a malfunctioning unicycle.

What did for Panesar in Cardiff last July was, paradoxically, not the shortcomings identified by Fletcher early in his career but his bowling, which had deteriorated to the point of impotence. He will not want his final Test figures to read one for 115. It is up to him now, and no one else, to find a way.

Ravi Bopara is a discard of an altogether different stamp. As Panesar went through the revolving door into the cold, the Essex batsman entered and was embraced as the sort of street fighter who could complement the silkier presence of Alastair Cook and Ian Bell. But, to the surprise of many, he cracked.

Vaughan says of Bopara: "Against Australia – big series, big pressure – he looked like he panicked. He looked like he played shots too early, that he didn't against the West Indies. He was almost playing the crowd and the moment rather than the ball."

Well, Bopara cannot be accused of playing to the crowd this winter. Colin Maiden Park in Auckland, part of the university's physical education campus, is his new club's temporary ground, while their main ground, Eden Park, is made over as a car park and hospitality venue for the Rugby World Cup next year.

The temporary headquarters of the Auckland club is tree-lined, pleasant and rarely attracts more than 50 spectators. It is a long way from a packed Headingley, where Bopara played his last Test match, that debacle against Australia in August when he contributed one and nought.

He is here as third choice, Andrew Symonds and Luke Wright having failed to agree terms, but Bopara snapped their hand off. "When can I start?" he said.

"We had only been looking for someone for the Twenty20 but he was very keen to come out for a longer period," Auckland's chief executive, Andrew Eade, says. "It worked out very nicely for us."

Bopara had just one aim: to score a bucket of runs. "Not being in the one-day or Test team hurt me a little bit," he said soon after arriving, "but the main thing now is for me to be scoring runs."

New Zealand's domestic season is a jumble. Four rounds of the Plunket Shield, the first-class competition, were followed by five rounds of the one-day programme, then the Twenty20 competition throughout January, with the remaining one-day schedule and first-class matches to round things off in February and March.

Bopara would have been required to arrive in Auckland around Christmas. He landed early in November. His journey took 70 hours, courtesy of flight delays, then his luggage was lost en route from Auckland to Napier. In the opening four-day game against Central Districts Bopara made 50 in his first innings and has been a steady, if not earth-shattering, contributor since.

Besides Colin Maiden Park, Bopara has traipsed around some of the lower-ranking first-class venues in New Zealand, including Nelson Park in Napier, across the road from the Test venue, McLean Park. It's a large park, home to school and club cricket at weekends, but possessing pitches only marginally inferior to McLean Park.

Then Bopara visited the quaintly named Village Green at Queen Elizabeth II Park in seaside suburban New Brighton in Christchurch. There's nothing remotely regal about this windswept piece of land, which brings heartbreak to bowlers, rarely offers a semblance of an even contest and should be dug up.

In these varied settings, Bopara averaged a disappointing 32 in the first-class matches; an impressive 56 from the one‑day games – which includes his one century thus far – and a half-century from three Twenty20 innings.

His inability to dominate the first-class matches did not help Auckland, who are defending champions. They sit bottom and pointless at the halfway stage. That said, he was good value in the one-day competition, which Auckland lead by four points, having won their past four games. In the Twenty20 they are mid-table, with one win from three games.

The word from the dressing room is Bopara has kept his head down and got on with the job. There has been no "big-noting", nor any signs that he's just out for the money and sunshine, which has often been the case with imports in their off-season.

"He's fitted in really well," the Auckland captain Gareth Hopkins says. "When I heard he was keen to come as soon as possible I was really pleased. It tells you a little bit about the guy's attitude."

It has not been a total picnic. The former England cricketer Dermot Reeve, now coach of Central Districts, insisted after a match against Auckland before Christmas: "I would take an oath and swear on my children's lives that I saw Ravi Bopara using his nails on the ball to help it swing."

Hopkins said: "They're pretty serious allegations and I'm a little bit annoyed because it taints Ravi's character without any substance behind it." New Zealand Cricket censured Reeve on Thursday and fined him $NZ750.